The German "Silk Road" Caravan tour party, teamed up by 23 western fans with their 11 strangely shaped jalopies, set out from Tianjin on May 30 for their 100-day-long "Silk Road" tour.

For a long time the members of the party, including teachers, engineers, doctors, and the retired, have been looking forward to driving their jalopies along the Silk Road. Among them, the oldest is 68 while the youngest is 31 years old.

The various types of jalopies were mostly manufactured during 1940s and 1950s. The touring party will spend over 40 days on the Silk Road tour of some 6,500-kilometer, traversing through Beijing Municipality, Hebei, Shanxi, Shaanxi, Gansu, Qinghai Provinces and Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, and crossing Xinjiang's Taklamakan Desert, which is nicknamed as the "Death Sea". After they leave China from Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, they will also spend some 50 days on another tour of some 9,500-kilometer, crossing eight countries including Kyrgyz, Iran, Turkey, Romania, Hungary and what not, and finally reach Berlin, Germany. This activity is reported to be unprecedented in history.

(People’s Daily 06/01/2001)